Lady Warriors' Frye burns Spartans with one-hitter

COEBURN — Chilhowie pitcher Emily Frye missed the first couple of months of the softball season.

The senior has made the most of the last month of it.

Frye threw a one-hitter Friday, facing just two batters over the minimum in Chilhowie’s 4-0 win over Eastside in the Region 1D tournament quarterfinals at McConnell Stadium.

“She had been out for eight or nine weeks with an injury. And she was our No. 1 pitcher,” said veteran Chilhowie coach John Sabo. “She’s coming. I just told her, you throw the strikes and we’ll play defense. And that’s what she did.”

NO SENIORITIS

Chilhowie (11-10) has four seniors, including Frye, on its roster.

“They wanted to win. They don’t want to quit. All four of my seniors had a good day today. They don’t want to quit,” Sabo said. “Everybody says we’re the worst team in the Hogoheegee and everywhere else for the first 10 ballgames. But we’re playing pretty well right now.”

Frye struck out seven and walked one in the win that sent Chilhowie on to the regional semifinals. The Lady Warriors will face a familiar foe in Hogoheegee District rival Patrick Henry, which beat Honaker 6-3 on Friday in their quarterfinal.

“We want another shot at Patrick Henry,” Sabo said. “They’ve beat us three times. It’s hard to beat a team four times, right?”

Eastside’s only two baserunners against Chilhowie came in the first and seventh innings. In the opening frame, Kacie Jones drew a two-out walk. Carrie Boyd delivered a two-out single for Eastside (14-7) in the bottom of the seventh to break up a no-hitter.

BIG, WEIRD INNING

Chilhowie scored all of its runs in the top of the third — the first two in unique fashion.

With two outs and runners on second and third, Georgia Luttrell hit what appeared to be a routine flyball to right field.

Eastside right fielder Taylor Perry moved into position to make the catch, but Perry stumbled in an apparent hole and twisted her ankle in the field, causing her to lose her balance.

Instead of Perry making the catch for the third out, the ball hit her on the head and ricocheted over the fence down the right field line.

“She was going after the ball and her foot turned and she was falling and the ball hit her in the head and went over the fence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” said Eastside coach Suzi Atwood.

Because the ball went out of play, both baserunners were awarded two bases, giving Chilhowie a 2-0 lead.

Perry recovered from the incident and continued in the game.

Luttrell was awarded second base on the strange play and scored when Shayla Rowland reached second on a two-base error.

Eastside’s third error of the inning allowed Rowland to move to third. She then scored on an infield single from Zoe Chapman for the fourth and final run of the game.

Atwood, who played softball for Chilhowie’s Sabo at Castlewood from 1984-86, said the strange play in right field had an effect on her squad.

“We got in a panic after that one inning,” said Atwood, whose young team has only one senior and one junior on the roster. “When Taylor got hurt, we just sort of fell to pieces for a little while and we couldn’t recover.

“We never did really recover in the batter’s box. We were just torn up the whole time. Just mentally torn up.”